This paper presents an overview of sociolinguistics by examining the fundamental concepts and issues therein. Research efforts in sociolinguistics focus on speakers and their exploration of language to cope with their daily communicative goals in society. The innate potential of language to cope with a wide range of phenomena to be expressed by speakers is incredible. Indeed, the repertoire of language is not exhaustive. Speakers express cultural norms, political issues, legal discourses, religious messages and scientific facts by using a linguistic system of communication – language. Sociolinguistics is the study of language and society. It elucidates the co-existence of different languages in society. Within a social structure, there are varieties of languages which contribute to the linguistic system and facilitate choice-making. Sociolinguistics is about language and society. In this study, we introduce sociolinguistics by examining language (its definition, functions and varieties), society, speech community and other phenomena that are on the front-burner in the literature.

The paper examines the potency of pragmatic theories in the analysis of female writings in northern Nigeria. As a literary genre, poetry is unique for deploying enchanting language in the communication of the poet’s thematic preoccupations. In using language to communicate themes or subject matter, the poet is engaged in two basic tasks: selecting appropriate words and skillfully patterning such words with others in stretches. From classical to contemporary times, pragmatic theories are essentially theoretical frameworks for the interpretation of textual meanings – meanings which reveal language use as the performance of actions. In the analysis of Sheefah Zarma’s poem (“Love”), this paper hinges on two theoretical underpinnings: Adegbija’s pragmatic theory and the Pragma-crafting Theory. The significance of this study is worthy of scholarly attention; to the best of our knowledge, most studies on the pragmatic investigation of language use in literary writings focus on prose and drama because these two genres of literature are more action-revealing in terms of the dynamics of human interaction which is the core of pragmatics. It is therefore particularly significant that this study demonstrates phenomenally that even poetry can capture fascinating action-like dimensions of language use to disabuse the minds of readers who do not see poetry as speech-acts-revealing. Interestingly, this study examines the work of a young female poet from northern Nigeria, rather than that of a celebrated writer from the same region – Zeinab Alkali. This study concludes that pragmatic theories are integrative and capture the contextual underpinnings of language use.

No abstract

No abstract

This paper investigates the preponderance of vulgar expressions in the selected song that glamorize materialism. Ostentatious living without a corresponding legitimate source of livelihood makes this study a compelling one as the song under reference seeks to glamorize Advance Fee Fraud otherwise referred to as ‘419’ in Nigeria parlance. This international crime derived its name from the section of the Nigeria Criminal Code in section 419. The study purposively selected the song as it meets the purposes and intentions of the paper while Pragmatic Acts Theory is chosen as its theoretical framework. This study purposively selected Olu Maintain’s song titled Yahooze on the basis of its conviction that it meets its preconceived bias of a song that thematizes and encourages materialism and crime. The study adopts the content analysis approach to discuss the identified lyrics that fit into the focus of this paper. Phrases and clauses in the song that are found to promote and glamorize illegal acquisition and flaunting of wealth are presented in a table and analyzed. Ostentatious living, globe-trotting, and mindless money-spending are evident in the song and highly promoted. The study concludes that Nigeria hip hop artistes should use their songs to mould the characters of Nigerian youths towards nation- building and imbibe the culture of dignity in labour.